Saturday, February 23, 2019

HAL-L&T Consortium To Start Integrating PSLVs For ISRO Soon

HAL-L&T Consortium To Start Integrating PSLVs For ISRO Soon

Shekhar Srivastava said discussions were under way to assess the exact cost of each PSLV

BANGALORE: Soon, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will start manufacturing the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Recently, the public sector unit formed a consortium with Larsen and Tourbo for this purpose.

Speaking to Express, Shekhar Srivatsava, Chief Executive Officer of HAL’s Bangalore Complex, said they were in the process of finalising an agreement with ISRO to start manufacturing the launch vehicles. “It is one of the prestigious projects we are associated with,” he said. To a question, he said that they were expecting to start production of the launch vehicles soon.

One of the primary objectives of outsourcing the manufacture of PSLVs to companies like HAL was to decrease their manufacturing costs. “ISRO still has to give us requirements on the number of launch vehicles they might require,” he said.

Considering the number of launches ISRO has every year, HAL is expecting an order of 12 PSLVs every year,he said.

Shekhar Srivastava said discussions were under way to assess the exact cost of each PSLV. HAL sources added that discussions were on and was expected to be finalised soon.

Earlier this year, ISRO chairman K Sivan had revealed that a consortium of HAL and L&T had approached ISRO after the space agency sought assistance from the public sector to manufacture PSLVs, in a bid to concentrate ISRO’s efforts towards research.

While Sivan had said that consortium consisting of other companies too had approached the agency, HAL sources said they had all the required equipment and partners to produce the launch vehicles as per ISRO’s schedule and requirements.

The history of PSLV launchers in the country has been ISRO’s success story with the rocket emerging as the workhorse of India’s space programme. Chandrayaan-1 too was launched on a modified PSLV launcher in October 2008. Many low-earth orbit remote sensing and earth observing satellites have been launched on board the PSLV, which made its maiden launch in 1993.